Character modeler
Community Forums/Developer Stations/Character modeler
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| Does anyone know of any good character modeler. Easy to learn, use (HaHA) That all depends on the artist, doesn't it? I've heard of Poser, Character Shop, Fragmotion, milkshape? I know about the character editors in Truespace, Maya, 3dsMax! Are there any others you fellas know about? |
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| I have Milkshape3D and I wish I could afford Maya. |
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| Softimage XSI is very easy to use, (I'd imagine Maya and Max would be too but then you get what you pay for...usually, with these things which explains Blender's interface ;-) ) Poser is good for rendering out 2d sprites, or other renders as you can't really (or legally either I think) use the character models with it in a 3d app or game, however they're so hi poly that's not of much use anyway. The amount of content available is huge, I've spent far too much on clothing and props which I like using in 2d games I've written. Stay away from Caligari - unstable products (crashing even on simple actions), slow render times (compared to mental ray in XSI), nightmarish interface.. Please note this is all just my own opinion, you're free to disagree. |
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| Something to try out would be to model in Silo, animate in Fragmotion or Blender. http://nevercenter.com/ and http://silo3d.com/forum/ http://www.fragmosoft.com/ http://www.blender.org/ Theres also the odd makehuman, that may or may not be of help: http://www.makehuman.org/blog/index.php |
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| Not claiming any great knowledge here, but based on my own experience: Milkshape is very simple to use. And cheap. And stable afaik. May be a good one to start with to get the basics of modelling and animating as it isn't cluttered up with lots of things you'll never use. And if low poly is what you want it could be all you ever need. Blender is a lot more sophisticated. And free! Poser is, as Matty says, irrelevant for 3d work. But could be worth looking at if you need to render sprites for a 2d game. Somewhat pricey and you would inevitably end up spending more on addons. Key things to look for imho - stability and a fair-sized helpful community - the things that keep me going with B3d rather than looking at other game engines. |
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| Poser is, as Matty says, irrelevant for 3d work. Unless you know what to use it for, and then it's not irrelevant at all. |
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| I second Peter Scheutz's post |
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| @ reactor So how is Poser useful re 3d character modelling for games? I'm interested to know and it might help the OP. I'll amend my above comments accordingly to avoid misleading anyone. |
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| Quidam http://www.n-sided.com/Index.php?&lg=en |
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| Depends what you want to do. AC3D is ok for making models and is cross platform. Plus has a basic UV editor but no bone/animation tools. Another application like FragMotion would have to be used to do that. http://www.inivis.com/ Blender is free and does almost every thing, but the interface requires a lot of learning. TrueSpace was bought buy Microsoft and was then dropped. So as Matty says stay well away. Delgine http://www.delgine.com/ exports to B3D/DBO and can import B3D There's the high end stuff like 3DSMAX --- The basic industry standard Application MAYA XSI CINEMA 4D --- Good Application and comes in a number of package bundle types (Basic,XL,Studio,Broadcaster,Architect and Engineering) that you can upgrade by buying addition moduals, with one highly configurable GUI interface, but a bit naff in the file export department but there are work arounds. ZBrush -- This is more of a sculpting application and is used with other 3D applications to make texture/normal maps ect. You can make models in the .obj format with it but you would have to animate/export them with another application |
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| So Matty, you're saying that Poser will not do 3D models, or is very complicated? |
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| @ reactor So how is Poser useful re 3d character modelling for games? I'm interested to know and it might help the OP. I'll amend my above comments accordingly to avoid misleading anyone. It's not necessarily good for 3D modelling (in fact as we all know, it's not at all) but for 3D work in general, especially when you're talking about animating characters, any version of Poser from about 5 up has a nice walk designer that can export out bvh motion files. While someone could use one of the many free bvh files around the 'net, at least with the walk designer you can adjust the walking to your character... which is helpful, since animating a walk cycle is a difficult thing to get right. Amanda, do you want a program to model characters, or animate them as well? To help you, maybe you could share with us what you're hoping to do, and how much exposure to modelling you have (and animation, if relevant). |
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| You don't generally 'create' character models in Poser, it's more like you either buy basic human models (ie Mike 3/4 Victoria 3/4 etc) or use the default ones - all of which are too high poly to use in a game, and then attach clothing (which conforms - which is nice) - this clothing is usually purchased as well, and attach props like weapons etc. The animation tools are nice however. Poser is not complicated, and it does do 3d models, but they are not really for real-time use. But if you want 2d sprites it can be very useful, that's generally what I've used it for. Also, some of the 3d prop models available for it, environments particularly, are very nice to use as backdrops in a 2d game. All of these were from poser: http://www.blitzbasic.com/gallery/view_pic.php?id=1528&gallery=&page=11 |
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| I'm basically a coder/scripter. My models suck. I also don't have the capital to hire an artist full-time to make my models for me. Therefore, I was looking for an inexpensive program that comes with pre-made models that I could maybe 'mod' a wee bit to make them look different, and then animate them with the common movements - walking running, jumping, climbing, etc. BTW, on the GarageGames website, they are promoting something called Houdini that is relatively cheap. have anybody had any experience with this piece of software? |
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| I thought Houdini was a post production fx software, maybe I'm thinking of something else though. |
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| http://www.animeeple.com/ |
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| Houdini is vfx software, yes. It can be used for modelling (not its strength, though), but the only version below about $10k can't be used for commercial work. I also don't have the capital to hire an artist full-time to make my models for me. Along with something like Animeeple (which looks interesting) and makehuman, you could always head on over to the artist profiles at the indiegamer forums- there are quite a few guys over there who sell pre-made models for far less than what it'd cost to hire someone full time to make something to order. |
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